วิทยาศาสตร์ เทคโนโลยี นวัตกรรม (2024)

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Abu Dhabi weather project 'creates man-made rainstorms'

A secret £7 million weather project in AbuDhabi has resulted in dozens of man-made rainstorms, according
to reports.

Children play in the street during a rain storm in Abu Dhabi Photo: ALAMY

6:54PM GMT 02 Jan 2011

Scientists employed by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the
UAE and leader of Abu Dhabi, successfully created more than 50 rainstorms in the state's Al Ain region last year, mostly in July and
August when there is virtually no rain at all. It is believed to be the first
time the system has produced rain from clear skies.

They have been using giant ionizers, shaped like giant lampshades, to
generate fields of negatively charged particles, which create cloud formation.

In a company video, seen by The Sunday Times, Helmut Fluhrer, the founder
of Metro Systems International, the Swiss company in charge of the project, said:
"We are currently operating our innovative rainfall enhancement technology,
Weathertec, in the region of Al Ain in Abu Dhabid. We started in June 2010 and have achieved a number of rainfalls."

Evidence Found for Ancient Mars Lake

space.com Thu Jun 18, 9:30 am ET

Several studies in recent years have claimed evidence for shorelines and other features that suggest ancient lakes on Mars. Firm evidence has remained elusive.

Now a University of Colorado at Boulder research team claims "the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars" in a statement released today.

The scientists see signs of "a deep, ancient lake," which would have implications for the potential for past life on Mars. Life as we know it requires water, and while Mars is dry now, if there was abundant water in the past -- as many studies have suggested -- then life would have been a possibility. There is, however, no firm evidence that life does or ever did exist on the red planet.

Researchers estimate the lake existed more than 3 billion years ago. It covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada, said Gaetano Di Achille, who led the study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The shoreline evidence, found along a broad delta, included a series of alternating ridges and troughs thought to be surviving remnants of beach deposits.

"This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars," Di Achille said. "The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago."

The findings have been published online in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Other studies have claimed evidence for lakes on Mars too, however, including one in Holden Crater announced last year.

And several studies have found evidence ï¿½€" from possible shorelines to salty deposits indicating the evaporation of water ï¿½€" for shallow lakes or oceans. Ancient Mars had abundant water, many lines of evidence indicate.

Images used for the study were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

An analysis of the images indicates water carved a 30-mile-long canyon that opened up into a valley, depositing sediment that formed a large delta, the researchers conclude. This delta and others surrounding the basin imply the existence of a large, long-lived lake, said Hynek, also an assistant professor in CU-Boulder's geological sciences department. The presumed lake bed is located within a much larger valley known as the Shalbatana Vallis.

"Finding shorelines is a Holy Grail of sorts to us," said Brian Hynek, also of CU-Boulder.

In addition, the evidence shows the lake existed during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry, which is at odds with current theories proposed by many planetary scientists, he said. "Not only does this research prove there was a long-lived lake system on Mars, but we can see that the lake formed after the warm, wet period is thought to have dissipated."

Further research will be needed to sort out the discrepancies, however.

Planetary scientists think the oldest surfaces on Mars formed during the wet and warm Noachan epoch from about 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago that featured a bombardment of large meteors and extensive flooding. The newly discovered lake is believed to have formed during the Hesperian epoch and postdates the end of the warm and wet period on Mars by 300 million years, according to the study.

The deltas adjacent to the lake are of high interest to planetary scientists because deltas on Earth rapidly bury organic carbon and other biomarkers of life, Hynek said. Most astrobiologists believe any present indications of life on Mars will be discovered in the form of subterranean microorganisms.

But in the past, lakes on Mars would have provided cozy surface habitats rich in nutrients for such microbes, Hynek said.

The retreat of the lake apparently was rapid enough to prevent the formation of additional, lower shorelines, Di Achille said. The lake probably either evaporated or froze over with the ice slowly turning to water vapor and disappearing during a period of abrupt climate change, according to the study.

Di Achille said the newly discovered pristine lake bed and delta deposits would be would be a prime target for a future landing mission to Mars in search of evidence of past life.

"On Earth, deltas and lakes are excellent collectors and preservers of signs of past life," said Di Achille. "If life ever arose on Mars, deltas may be the key to unlocking Mars' biological past."

Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires

Tue Jun 16, 2009 1 :06 PM EDT

Yahoo Buzz up!

Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have been able to "beam" electricity a few feet to power a light bulb, the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.

Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.

While "traditional" (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia's system isn't finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems -- all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone's battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there's no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It's the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.

Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn't be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it's in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power -- provided you're not stuck deep underground where radio waves can't penetrate.

Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years.

Do Dinosaurs Still Exist?

Benjamin Radford

livescience.com ï¿½ Thu Jun 4, 4:51 pm ET

The idea of still-living dinosaurs has captured the public imagination for well over a century.

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, published a 1912 novel called "The Lost World," set in the remote Venezuelan jungle where dinosaurs still survive in modern times. Films such as "Jurassic Park" and "Land of the Lost," which opens Friday, were inspired by Conan Doyle's vision - in fact the sequel to "Jurassic Park" was titled "The Lost World."

The animated film "Up" (currently No. 1 at the box office) also takes place in this lost world, the plot involving the discovery of an unknown, multicolored dinosaur.

For most of us, fiction is good enough. Yet some believe that giant dinosaurs still exist today, just beyond the reach of scientific proof.

Lake monsters

There are hundreds of lakes harboring reputed monsters around the world, from Scotland's Loch Ness to Canada's Lake Okanagan, America's Lake Champlain to Argentina's Lake Nahuel.

The explanations for such monsters include dinosaurs and dinosaur-like animals. Believers and researchers ask what else could be so big, and account for the sightings.

Many believe that lake and sea monster reports can be "explained" as animals like the plesiosaur (a long-necked aquatic reptile that reached 40 feet in length) or the ichthyosaur (shonisaurus sikanniensis), which were as big as a submarine.

Mokele-Mbembe

In the remote jungles of central Africa, native stories tell of a dinosaur-like creature said to be up to 35 feet long, with brownish-gray skin and a long, flexible neck. Many believe that it lives in caves it digs in riverbanks, and feeds on elephants, hippos, and crocodiles.

Roy Mackal, a retired University of Chicago biologist who conducted two expeditions in search of the Mokele-Mbembe, believes that the descriptions of the creature suggest "a small sauropod dinosaur."

Despite more than two dozen searches for the "living dinosaur" as recently as last year, evidence is elusive. There are no photographs or films of the creature, no bones or teeth, no evidence beyond stories and anecdote.

The surprising truth

Of course the fatal flaw in the idea that giant dinosaurs still lurk in remote jungles or cold, deep lakes is that all the evidence suggests they died out about 65 million years ago. Many of the lakes said to hide dinosaurs were created only about 10,000 years ago.

If dinosaurs had existed up until much more recently - say, the Nixon administration or even Shakespeare's time - the likelihood of a few remaining, lonely huge dinosaurs might be plausible. But 65 million years is a long time for giant dinosaurs to live and die without leaving any recent fossils.

Yet scientifically speaking, not all dinosaurs died out. Most of us see dinosaurs every day, and some people even have them in their homes. Birds are the modern version of dinosaurs, though seeing Will Ferrell or Jeff Goldblum running terrified from an approaching pigeon just isn't very dramatic.

Half of All Friends Replaced Every 7 Years

By Live Science Staff

2009-06-01

You may have more Facebook friends as the years go by, but when it comes to your close friends, you lose about half and replace them with new ones after about seven years, new social research suggests.

As a result, the size of your social network stays about the same.

People might like to think they have control over whom they choose as friends, but social networks could also be influenced by the context in which we meet one another. Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst of Utrecht University in the Netherlands was interested in finding out exactly how much our networks are shaped by social context or by personal preference.

He conducted a survey of 1,007 people ages 18 to 65, and then contacted the participants seven years later. From the original group, 604 people were re-interviewed. The survey contained questions such as: Who do you talk with, regarding personal issues? Who helps you with DIY in your home? Who do you pop by to see? Where did you get to know that person? And where do you meet that person now?

The results showed that personal network sizes remained stable, but that many members of the network were new. About 30 percent of discussion partners and practical helpers had the same position in a typical subject's network seven years later. And only 48 percent were still part of the network. This finding goes against previous research which had showed that social network sizes are shrinking.

Mollenhorst also established that networks were not formed based on personal choices alone. Our friend choices are limited by the opportunities to meet. He saw that people frequently choose friends from a context in which they have previously chosen a friend. Also, whether or not our friends know each other strongly depends on the context under which people meet.

Mollenhorst's research is part of the project "Where friends are made. Context, Contacts, Consequences," set up by Beate Vï¿½lker.

NYC eatery grants freedom to lobster centenarian

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer Verena Dobnik.

Jan.9, 2009

AP ï¿½ In this photo released by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 'George,' a live 20 pound ï¿½

NEW YORK ï¿½ A 140-year-old lobster once destined for a dinner plate received the gift of life Friday from a Park Avenue seafood restaurant.

George, the 20-pound super centenarian crustacean, was freed by City Crab and Seafood in New York City.

"We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace," said Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA spokesman Michael McGraw said the group asked City Crab to return George to the Atlantic Ocean after a diner saw him at the restaurant, where steamed Maine lobster sells for $27 per pound. George had been caught off Newfoundland, Canada and lived in the tank for about 10 days before his release.

Some scientists estimate lobsters can live to be more than 100 years old. PETA and the restaurant guessed George's age at about 140, using a rule of thumb based on the creature's weight.

He was to be released Saturday near Kennebunkport, Maine, in an area where lobster trapping is forbidden.

'Jumbo Hostel': Boeing 747 converted into lodging

By Bertil Ericson, AFP/Getty Images

A Boeing 747 aircraft in Sweden is being converted into the world's first 'Jumbo Hostel.' Operators are already accepting bookings and plan to open to guests in mid January.

By Niklas Larsson, AP Photo

Swedish entrepreneur Oscar Dios is seen in one of the rooms on the former Pan-Am 747 that is being converted for guests. The hostel will feature 25 rooms with three beds in each and a suite in the upper deck cockpit area.

By Karl Ritter, Associated Press Writer

STOCKHOLM ï¿½ When you exit Arlanda Airport on the highway toward Stockholm, you'll see a Boeing 747 on your left that looks curiously out of place.

The plane sits idle and lonely on a grass-covered mound just outside the airport perimeter, without any recognizable airline colors.

You might think the giant aircraft got lost on the way to the runway and was abandoned here, were it not for the inscription on the side: "Jumbo Hostel."

Turns out this former Pan Am jumbo jet is no longer taking passengers to the skies, but will soon be accommodating them on the ground. Left inactive at Arlanda, Stockholm's main airport, after its last owner went bankrupt, the plane was rescued by a Swedish entrepreneur looking to expand his hostel business.

"I got information about this airplane standing abandoned at Arlanda," says Oscar Dios, who runs a hostel in Uppsala, about 20 miles north of Arlanda. "I thought why not try to convert it into a hostel? Since you've been converting boats and light houses and trains before into hostels."

Construction crews are working through the holidays to get the 25 rooms ready for the scheduled opening on Jan. 15. Jumbo Hostel is already taking bookings.

The 65-square-foot rooms are Spartanly furnished, with a bunk bed, an overhead luggage compartment and a flat screen TV with entertainment as well as flight information.

Every inch of the 3,800-square-foot floor space is being used. There will be a reception and small cafeteria just inside the front entrance, two rows of rooms on each side of the aisle, and showers and toilets in the rear. The bubble on top is being remodeled into a conference room with first-class flight seats.

Dios is hoping for a diverse clientele, including airport taxi drivers stopping for a coffee break in the cafeteria, business travelers needing accommodation close to Arlanda and even wedding parties looking for an unusual ceremony.

As soon as the guard rails come up, couples will be able to exchange vows on the left wing, receive a small party in the conference room and spend the night in the cockpit, converted into a bridal suite with a private bathroom.

Rates range from $40 for a bed in a shared four-bed dormitory to $170 for a private room with a twin bed and a single bed. The bridal suite costs $420 per night.

Dios says his idea of aircraft lodging is unprecedented: "That's what we've heard so far. Smaller planes have been turned into restaurants, but never a 747 into a hostel."

While emphasizing comfort, he's added details in the interior decor to remind guests "that they're actually inside an aircraft."

When you wake up, you'll see the soft curvature of the ceiling, and, through the row of windows, the tail fins of operational aircraft parked at their gates at Arlanda.

Hostel staff will wear cabin crew uniforms ï¿½ what else ï¿½ and the furniture in the cafeteria will evoke the glory days of air travel.

"We're going for the Pan-Am era. A lot of '70s," says project leader Gisela Olsson, holding up an orange seat for the cafeteria chairs.

Built in 1976, the plane ï¿½ now named Liv after Dios' daughter ï¿½ first took to the skies with Singapore Airlines before shifting to Pan Am for about 10 years.

After that airline went belly up in the 1990s, it flew under a variety of colors until being bought by Swedish leasing company Trans jet. When that, too, went bankrupt, the aircraft was left decaying at Arlanda Airport until Dios came along with a bundle of cash.

It remains to be seen whether his idea will take off among Arlanda air travelers.

"If I've been flying all day, I wouldn't want to sleep on a plane," says Lynn Sundelius, a 19-year-old student at Stockholm University.

Still, Dios is confident Jumbo Hostel will be profitable and even spread to airports around the world. "It's no kamikaze project," he says.

Study illuminates star explosion from 16th century

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer Thu Dec 4, 12:05 am ET.

AP This X-ray image provided by NASA, and captured by the German ROSAT satellite in the 1990s,

NEW YORK More than 400 years after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe challenged established wisdom about the heavens by analyzing a strange new light in the sky, scientists say they've finally nailed down just what he saw.

It's no big surprise. Scientists have known the light came from a supernova, a huge star explosion. But what kind of supernova?

A new study confirms that, as expected, it was the common kind that involves the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf star with a nearby companion.

The research, which analyzed a "light echo" from the long-ago event, is presented in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by scientists in Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.

The story of what's commonly called Tycho's supernova began on Nov. 11, 1572, when Brahe was astonished to see what he thought was a brilliant new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. The light eventually became as bright as Venus and could be seen for two weeks in broad daylight. After 16 months, it disappeared.

Working before telescopes were invented, Brahe documented with precision that unlike the moon and the planets, the light's position didn't move in relation to the stars. That meant it lay far beyond the moon. That was a shock to the contemporary view that the distant heavens were perfect and unchanging.

The event inspired Brahe to commit himself further to studying the stars, launching a career of meticulous observations that helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy, said Michael Shank, a professor of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The direct light from the supernova swept past Earth long ago. But some of it struck dust clouds in deep space, causing them to brighten. That "light echo" was still observable, and the new study was based on analyzing the wavelengths of light from that.

Could this be the world's oldest living creature?

Jonathan the tortoise could be 175 years old

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Jonathan the tortoise: at a possible age of 175-plus he would be the world?s oldest living animal

The span of history a giant tortoise can live through is vividly illustrated in a remarkable picture on the British island colony of St Helena in the year 1900.

One of the men behind them (in our second picture) is believed to be an Afrikaner captured during the Boer War, which lasted from 1899-1902. The remote South Atlantic island, the final prison of Napoleon from 1815 until his death there in 1821, later housed a Boer War prison camp holding 6,000 inmates.

The scene is thought to be the grounds of Plantation House, the St Helena governor's residence in the island capital of Jamestown, where three giant tortoises were brought as ornamental pets from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean in 1882.

The animals may have been 50 years old then, and so would be about 70 when the photo was taken and one of the three, named Jonathan, is still alive. At a possible age of 175-plus he would be the world's oldest living animal. The previous oldest-known tortoise was thought to be Harriet, a giant Galapagos land tortoise who died, aged 175, in 2005 in Australia.

Jonathan is treated as a celebrity, and for good reason: during his remarkable lifespan he has seen the coronation of eight British monarchs, from George IV to Elizabeth II, and a staggering 50 prime ministers.

These days he hangs out with fellow land tortoises David, Speedy, Emma, Fredricka and Myrtle, who are much younger; and according to locals, he still has the energy to mate regularly with the three females. "Jonathan feeds on the grass of the main paddock and is still very active despite his age, and adores attention," said a spokesman for the island's tourist board. "He is a real poser. He seems to be sightless in one eye, but does not let that slow him down."

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Cyberspace Trade Shows Bring Action to the Desktop

TAKE MY CARD A virtual trade conference staged by Unisfair, a company in Menlo Park, Calif., is meant to have a familiar look. But visitors are spared the irritations of traveling and dealing with pesky booth attendants.

By HEATHER CLANCY

Published: September 12, 2007

THERE are no stale bagels at virtual trade shows. And no free knickknacks. But this new kind of gathering, which takes place in cyberspace, does deliver something real: sales prospects with more than a passing interest in your products or services.

While still an experiment, virtual events have the advantage of reducing costs associated with staging a physical convention. According to executives at companies that have taken the plunge, exhibitors can track online visitors activity, helping them determine who might be a serious prospect.

We can show people not just who came in and how long, but really show the specifics of the content that they interacted with, said Robert Rosenbloom, a co-founder and chief executive of PlatformQ, a virtual event start-up in Needham, Mass., that is planning its first two events for this fall.

Because visitors to virtual trade shows tend to feel they are more anonymous online than in person, they often spend more time looking through information than if a sales representative were staring at them from across an exhibit booth, Mr. Rosenbloom said.

A hot prospect might leave behind traces of five or six points of contact, said Les Yeamans, the founder of ebizQ, a media company in New Rochelle, N.Y., that produces dozens of online conferences each year. It's a very efficient ecosystem," he said.

EbizQ was an early customer for Unisfair, a Menlo Park, Calif., company that has been host to more than 250 virtual events. Founded in 2002, Unisfair has developed an Internet-based environment not unlike the 3-D world of the video game Second Life, except that it showcases exhibit booths, presentations and other information related to a particular event or topic.

"We have to make sure that within 30 seconds to a minute that people know what's possible" said Brett Arslaner, vice president for marketing at Unisfair.

The cost of a virtual trade show depends on variables like the number of sessions it hosts simultaneously as well as the number of attendees and the number of exhibitors, but it is generally far less than a physical production.

"This makes all sorts of sense for a large distributed audience" he added.

Mr. Arslaner said many Unisfair clients, including Hewlett-Packard, which employs the technology for meetings of its customers in more than 90 countries, consider virtual events a complement to regular conferences. "By no means do we advocate that physical events are going away" he said.

Keeping the intimacy of a live event was a big concern for Richard McDonell, a group manager of product marketing for the PXI and Instrument Control division of National Instruments.

"We wanted to preserve the eventlike feel and the sense that this was something important to attend" said Mr. McDonell, who converted an 18-city industry road show, called the Automated Test Summit, into a consolidated virtual conference last May.

The online conference and an archived version that remained available for 90 days drew 1,950 visitors. That compared favorably with the roughly 100 people the previous year's show attracted at each stop. It also included more participants from abroad.

The event delivered more customer prospects than anticipated more quickly, while significantly reducing costs for the sponsors, Mr. McDonell said.

Many companies have begun offering virtual trade-show services, although none has the name recognition of Unisfair, said Jeffrey Mann, an analyst with Gartner, a market research firm.

"I think a lot of the basic hurdles and problems are going away" he said.

Platform Q plans to provide online conferences for financial services, educational, health care, real estate and construction businesses and industry associations.

The common trait of a successful event real or virtual is good content, Mr. Rosenbloom said. "The reason people come to events is the programming" he said.

As Mr. Mann echoed "You want to see busy booths, run into friends. You want to avoid the sweaty rooms and waiting for taxis, but you want to keep the buzz and the live feedback."

NY welcomes wave adaptive modular vessel

By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press Writer.Thu Sep 6, 10:57 PM ET

Pity the fisherman or sailor who staggers on deck in the morning and through bleary eyes sees a 100-foot-long water spider coming at him, buzzing ominously.

No cause for alarm, however. It's just Proteus, a so-called Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel designed for everything from military uses to biological studies, ocean exploration and sea rescue.

Daniel Basta, director of the National Marine Sanctuaries for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said the lightweight, low cost and modular craft is well suited to scientific and environmental purposes. The spindly catamaran can travel 5,000 miles farther than across the Atlantic on one 2,000-gallon load of diesel fuel.

"Proteus will be able to launch and recover automatic vehicles, do remote vehicle operations, it will be tested for standard dive support operations, putting instruments on the bottom, collecting data all the things that we currently do in one form or another, but most likely more cheaply, effectively and probably better," Basta said.

Proteus was making its first appearance in New York, the fourth leg of a tour that began in San Francisco in January and will end in Washington, D.C.

It tooled around the harbor off lower Manhattan, a seagoing traffic-stopper that looked like an escaped prop from "War of the Worlds." Although the U.S. Coast Guard had been alerted in advance to the strange craft's presence, it dispatched a small patrol craft to check it out.

Ugo Conti, an Italian-born engineer and oceanographer who designed Proteus, was aboard a chartered harbor cruise boat during his creation's star turn on Thursday.

He and his wife, Isabella, are the co-founders of Marine Advanced Research, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based firm that built the Proteus for about $1.5 million, Isabella Conti said.

The craft rides on metal and fabric pontoons that have hinges and shock absorbers to flex with the motion of the waves, which helps it to skim over the water at a maximum speed of 30 knots (34.5 mph).

Described as 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, the Proteus is no luxury craft. Its crew cabin, suspended like a gondola from its four-legged superstructure, is appropriately spartan for a boat named for a Greek sea god who in mythology was able to change into different forms.

In keeping with that versatility, Proteus does have pleasure-boat potential. It can be fitted with different types of detachable cabins that can accommodate anything from a honeymooning couple to 12 passengers.

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Wine grape genome decoded, flavour genes found

Paris - AFP by Marlowe Hood Sun Aug 26, 1:13 PM ET

Scientists in France and Italy have deciphered the complete genetic code for the plant producing wine grapes, according to a study published Sunday.

While the findings will do nothing to enhance the mystique of winemaking, they could pave the way for gene-based manipulations to boost flavour and improve resistance against disease.

Dozens of researchers analyzing the Pinot Noir varietal of Vitis vinifera, the core species from which virtually all grape wine is made, found twice as many genes contributing to aroma than in other sequenced plants, suggesting that wine flavours could be traced to the genome level.

The French-Italian Public Consortium for Grapevine Genome Characterisation, which collectively authored the study, also gained crucial insights into the genetic evolution of plants over the last 200 million of years.

V. vinifera is only the fourth complete genetic sequence ever produced for a flowering plant, and the first for a fruit crop.

The other three are rice, the poplar, and Thale Cress, a species of wild plant related to mustard and cabbage.

Pinot Noir, the signature grape of the famous Burgundy wine region in northern France, was selected because of its inbred genotype, which made it easier to sequence.

The study, published in the British journal Nature, will be of enormous interest to global grape growing and wine industries eager to diminish costly plant disease and enhance the flavour of a product that generates some 200 billion dollars (150 billion euros) a year in revenue.

"It is strategic for a species as economically important as the grape vine to develop the tools and genetic resources" to resist pathogens and improve quality, wrote Anne-Francoise Adam-Blondon, one of the authors, in explaining the origin of the Franco-Italian initiative.

The researchers discovered that V. vinifera had large "families" of genes "directly correlated with the aromatic features of wine," especially related to tannins and terpenes.

Tannins, astringent compounds found in the grape skin and seeds -- especially red grapes -- adds body and structure needed for aging, and are considered essential for producing a balanced wine. They are also thought to help prevent hardening of the arteries.

Terpenes are the main ingredient in the essential oils of many plants and flowers widely used as natural flavour additives for food, and in fragrances. In wines, they are especially concentrated in the Muscat grape, where they exude floral tones of rose and violet.

The study also identified the genetic source in the plant of resveratrol, the anti-oxidant in red wine that been widely associated with health benefits ranging from anti-aging to boosting anti-viral treatments.

Perhaps even more important to winemakers than manipulating molecules related to taste -- which is sure to generate controversy -- is the potential to make V. vinifera more resistant to diseases that causes tens of millions of dollars in damage every year.

Research is already underway, noted Adam-Blondon, to isolate a gene that could increase resistance to oidium, a common form of mildew to which Pinot Noir is especially vulnerable.

This would also help reduce the use of chemicals in grape growing, she added, pointing out that in France that grape vines account for three percent of farm land cultivated, but 20 percent of herbicides used.

Investors, big businesses see green in being green

AP Mon August 20, 2007

LONDON, England (AP) -- Big business fears that the fight against climate change will cost billions are now giving way to a different view: green can be the color of money.

More companies are involved in the creation of alternative sources of energy like electricity from wind farms.

The United States, Europe and Japan are locked in a frantic race to cash in on the exploding business of saving the planet. London has become the center for the multibillion dollar market in carbon emissions, attracting investors who trade CO2 allowances.

Silicon Valley is leading the way in attracting venture capital for green technologies that shows signs of mirroring the dot-com boom -- and critics say eventual bust -- of the 1990s. And Japan's Toyota has sold more than a million Prius hybrid models, its cutting-edge eco-friendly car.

Like all markets, the clean energy industry faces risks.

A sustained fall in the world's steep oil prices could make investment in alternatives to fossil fuels seem less attractive.

More important, to sustain business' new attraction to clean energy, governments must maintain, or even step up, efforts to cut carbon emissions. Toward that end, a major U.N. meeting will be held in Bali, Indonesia, in December aimed at reaching a new global climate pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

But for now, the battle against global warming continues to offer investors an unusual chance to be idealistic and greedy at the same time.

"Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon," said Milo Sjardin, a senior associate at New Energy Finance, a research house in London on the world's clean energy and carbon markets.

The City of London financial district has taken the lead in making billions from the management of CO2 emissions, one of the fastest-growing segments in financial services.

The carbon market was created after Europe signed the 1997 Kyoto agreement on curbing green house gases. In 2005, European governments started capping the amounts of carbon dioxide that industries could emit, while letting them buy and sell CO2 emission allowances.

The cap-and-trade system encourages factories and industries to cut emissions by giving them "pollution permits." If they produce less greenhouse gases than the total of their permits, they can sell the surplus certificates -- also known as credits -- to companies that find them cheaper than cutting their own emissions.

That created the fast-growing carbon markets, where certificates are bought and sold like a commodity. It also includes investments in projects that help to generate additional credits.

About $30.4 billion of allowances were traded last year, representing 1.6 billion tons of CO2, double the volume of 2005, said Point Carbon, a company of market analysts based in Norway.

New Energy Finance estimates that $33.8 billion carbon credits will be needed to meet targets under the Kyoto Accord and the European Emissions-Trading Scheme by 2012.

Britain has emerged as the clear leader in carbon fund management, with 72 percent of private carbon funds and 50 percent of all carbon funds being managed out of London, New Energy Finance said.

The United States, which rejected the Kyoto agreement, has never adopted a federal system of controls for carbon-dioxide emissions, although California has binding targets to cut CO2 emissions and other states are expected to follow.

The United States, however, has emerged as the world leader in developing clean energy technologies.

It involves a wide range of sectors, including wind, solar, biofuels, biomass (organic material to produce power and heat), energy efficiency technology, hydrogen and fuel cells, and tidal power.

"General Electric has been a leader in the campaign to develop new clean technologies that allows one to save energy and make money at the same time," said Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki, head of Andlug Consulting, a strategic consultancy on climate change and the financial sector based in Perth, Scotland.

He said oil companies, carmakers and power generators are increasing their investments in renewables and biofuels.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists also are rushing into the business, hoping to design revolutionary technologies, drive down prices and defeat energy business giants, said Dlugolecki.

Some entrepreneurs are seeking technological and scientific innovations to produce alternatives to oil and coal, while others hope to find ways of using those fuels in cleaner and more efficient ways.

Other investors are pouring money into wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower as countries such as China and more than 20 U.S. states require a certain portion of energy sold to come from renewable sources.

A recent survey of investors found many of them are turning green.

Deloitte Touche's 2006 "Global Venture Capital Survey" in the Americas, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa found that for a second year in a row respondents selected energy/environment as the sector most likely to see the highest increase in investment focus.

That also has led to a word of caution for investors.

"There's a lot of money chasing not so many ideas, so the prices are going up fast, raising some concern that this activity by venture capitalists and hedge funds could produce the next dot-com bust," said Dlugolecki.

New Energy Finance, which tracks all investment flows in the clean energy market, said 1,250 capital and private equity funds were investing in companies involved in the market in 2006.

In that year, $4 billion in investment originated in the Americas, mostly the United States, compared to $1.6 billion for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The investment in the clean energy market also doubled from 2005 to 2006 in the Americas, while remaining about the same in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, New Energy Finance said.

However, when it comes to initial public offerings for clean energy companies in 2006, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, turned the tables, producing a total value of $4.8 billion, compared to $2 billion in the Americas, said New Energy Finance.

One reason is that clean energy IPOs appear to favor London because AIM -- the Alternative Investment Market submarket of the London Stock Exchange -- allows smaller companies to float shares with a more flexible regulatory system than is applicable to the main market and Wall Street.

Human footprint may be oldest ever found

Reuters Mon August 20, 2007 2:02 p.m. EDT

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) -- Egyptian archaeologists have found what they said could be the oldest human footprint in history in the country's western desert, the Arab country's antiquities' chief said on Monday.

"This could go back about two million years," said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. "It could be the most important discovery in Egypt," he told Reuters.

Archaeologists found the footprint, imprinted on mud and then hardened into rock, while exploring a prehistoric site in Siwa, a desert oasis.

Scientists are using carbon tests on plants found in the rock to determine its exact age, Hawass said.

Khaled Saad, the director of prehistory at the council, said that based on the age of the rock where the footprint was found, it could date back even further than the renowned 3-million year-old fossil Lucy, the partial skeleton of an ape-man, found in Ethiopia in 1974.

Most archaeological interest in Egypt is focused on the time of the pharaohs.

Previously, the earliest human archaeological evidence from Egypt dated back around 200,000 years, Saad said.

Researchers develop bendable battery

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press WriterMon Aug 13, 7:17 PM ET

It's a battery that looks like a piece of paper and can be bent or twisted, trimmed with scissors or molded into any shape needed. While the battery is only a prototype a few inches square right now, the researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who developed it have high hopes for it in electronics and other fields that need smaller, lighter power sources.

"We would like to scale this up to the point where you can imagine printing batteries like a newspaper. That would be the ultimate," Robert Linhardt a professor at the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at RPI said in a telephone interview.

The development is reported in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Unlike other batteries, Linhardt explained, it is an integrated device, not a combination of pieces.

The battery uses paper infused with an electrolyte and carbon nanotubes that are embedded in the paper. The carbon nanotubes form the electrodes, the paper is the separator and the electrolyte allows the current to flow.

Students at the school in Troy, N.Y., were the inspiration for the work, said Linhardt, whose students were working on methods to dissolve paper and cast it into membranes for use in dialysis machines.

Meanwhile, students of Pulickel Ajayan in RPI's materials science department were trying to make carbon nanotube composites using polymers.

The two groups got together and realized they could use paper instead of polymers and combine the two projects.

Then came Omkaram Nalamasu's students, also at RPI, who said the project a thin sheet black on one side and white on the other looked like an electrical device.

And over about 18 months, the groups developed the projects, into a battery, a capacitor, which stores electricity and a combination of the two.

Ajayan sees potential uses in combination with solar cells, perhaps layers of the paper batteries that could store the electricity generated until it is needed, he said in a telephone interview.

Perhaps it could be scaled up and shaped into something like a car door, offering moving electrical storage and power when needed.

That might be an expensive proposition, however, cautioned Peter Kofinas, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland.

"The advantage of a flexible device would be that you could roll it in a film or a sheet. However, carbon nanotubes are very expensive," said Kofinas, who was not involved in the research.

"So from the commercial standpoint, this would be very expensive if you want to make a large sheet out of this material," he said via e-mail. In addition, he said, "It does not look like it performs better than currently available batteries and supercapacitors in the market."

Because of its flexibility, however, it does have potential, Kofinas said.

The research was funded by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research and the National Science Foundation.

___

On the Net:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: http://www.rpi.edu

China's white dolphin likely extinct

AFP Wed Aug 8, 7:04 AM ET

China's rapid industrialisation has likely made extinct a species of fresh water dolphin that had been on Earth for over 20 million years, Chinese and British biologists said Wednesday.

Scientists from China, Japan, Britain and the United States failed to find the white dolphin, known as the baiji, during a six-week search of its natural habitat in the Yangtze river last year.

"This result means the baiji is likely extinct," Wang Ding, co-author of the survey and one of the world's leading experts on the species, told AFP.

The dolphin was a victim of devastating pollution, illegal fishing and heavy cargo traffic on the Yangtze, Wang said.

The findings mean the baiji is likely the first mammal to become extinct in more than 50 years. It is the cousin of the bottlenose dolphin, which is also on the critically endangered list.

Wang, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasised that not all hope was lost for the dolphin, which had made its home along the lower reaches of China's now heavily polluted Yangtze River for more than 20 million years.

"We are not saying the baiji is already gone," he said.

But he lamented that further searches this year had failed to find any sign of the dolphin.

Wang said that a letter written by the survey team had been published in the latest issue of the Royal Society Biology Letters journal in Britain to confirm the dolphin was believed to be extinct.

The baiji, identifiable by its long, teeth-filled snout and low dorsal fin, was last officially sighted more than two years ago.

The last confirmed count by a research team was conducted in 1997, when just 13 were recorded.

Up to 5,000 baiji were believed to have lived in the Yangtze less than a century ago, according to the baiji.org website, which was established by a range of international conservation groups.

"The decline in the baiji population has been caused by extreme human pressure on its freshwater habitat," the website said, blaming illegal fishing and massive discharges of industrial and agricultural waste into the river.

Other rare species that live in the Yangtze, such as the Chinese sturgeon and the finless porpoise, are also in danger of extinction.

The British-based zoologist who also worked on the six-week search meanwhile said the loss of the Yangste dolphin was a huge blow.

"The loss of such a unique and charismatic species is a shocking tragedy," said co-author Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London.

"The Yangtze River dolphin was a remarkable mammal that separated from all other species over 20 million years ago."

International environmental group WWF has warned that river dolphins are key indicators of a river's health and of the availability of clean water for people living on its banks.

"River dolphins are the watchdogs of the water," said Jamie Pittock, head of WWF's Global Freshwater Programme in a recent alert over their fate.

"The high levels of toxic pollutants accumulating in their bodies are a stark warning of poor water quality. This is a problem for both dolphins and the people dependent on these rivers," he added.

Turvey added: "This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet."

Birds Help Trees Soar

By Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer

01 August 2007 11:44 am ET

Birds boost tree height up to 33 percent by munching on pesky parasites that can literally suck the life out of the tall-growing plants, a new study shows.

"In a nutshell ... the presence of these birds in pine forests increased the growth of the trees by helping to rid them of damaging insects," said Kailen Mooney, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Birds remove harmful species of beetles, caterpillars, ants and aphids from branches, Mooney explained, increasing the vigor of trees. His findings are detailed in the August issue of the journal Ecology.

The avian activity also changes the chemical "flavor" of the trees by boosting terpenes chemicals found to repel tree-eating pests such as bark beetles as well as porcupines and squirrels.

"More than anything, this study underscores the importance of preserving the ecological communities in the forest and not just the trees," Mooney said.

'Crowd Farm' Converts Footsteps into Electricity

By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

31 July 2007 12:37 pm ET

Two MIT students have found the next new source of energy: you.

A new technology developed by the graduate students would take the energy generated by human movement, such as walking or jumping, in crowded settings and turn it into electricity.

The so-called "Crowd Farm" would work something like this: A responsive sub-flooring system would be placed under, say, the platform of a subway terminal. The blocks that make up the system would depress slightly under the force of human footsteps. As the blocks slipped against each other, they would generate power in the form of an electric current.

That electric current could be used, among other things, to light up signs about the energy created by the pedestrians, the creators say.

"We want people to understand the direct relationship between their movement and the energy produced," said co-creator Thaddeus Jusczyk.

While the Crowd Farm wouldn't work in the home (a single human step generates only enough power to light two 60-watt light bulbs for one second), it could really draw some power from a crowd producing thousands of steps. Some 28,527 steps, for example, could power an entire moving train for a second.

The Crowd Farm could also be used to harness the head-bashing energy at a rock concert.

"Greater movement of people could make the music louder," said Jusczyk.

The students' creation was presented at the Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition earlier this year, where it took first place.

FCC sets airwaves sale rule

Reuters: Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:47PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission voted to shake up the wireless market on Tuesday by approving rules for a big airwaves auction that would require the winner to make them accessible to any cell phone or other device.

The sale would likely begin in December or January and the government expects it to raise at least $10 billion. The airwaves are being returned by television broadcasters as they move to digital from analog signals in early 2009.

The access requirement would apply to 22 megahertz of the 62 MHz of spectrum to be sold. Two Republican FCC commissioners, who expressed reservations about the idea, stressed it would not apply to existing airwaves held by carriers like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless.

The agency stopped short of a broader requirement sought by potential bidder Google Inc. that would force the winner to resell access to its network on a wholesale basis.

Currently, wireless carriers restrict the models of cell phones that can be used on their networks. They also limit the software that can be downloaded onto them, such as ring tones, music or Web browser software.

Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who proposed the access concept, received support from the agency's two Democratic commissioners.

The two Republican commissioners expressed support for parts of the auction plan but one, Robert McDowell, warned the highly tailored access conditions might end up suiting no bidder, and the other, Deborah Tate, cautioned there could be safety concerns if a network operator could not control the applications being used on its airwaves.

Martin said he hoped the carriers would apply the policy to their existing airwaves.

"I hope that will actually spur a more open platform on this new piece of spectrum, but also make sure that some of the benefits of innovation are then able to flow to some of the other networks as well," he told reporters.

The FCC suggested a $4.6 billion minimum price for the 22 MHz block of airwaves. If that price is not reached, the airwaves would be auctioned again, but without the access requirement, according to the agency.

The spectrum being sold can travel long distances and penetrate thick walls, making it particularly valuable. The auction, to be done with anonymous bidding, is seen as a last chance for a major new player to enter the wireless market.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris King said that while the open access conditions would be disappointing for service providers, it should not hurt them in the near term.

"Opening to any device is probably something the wireless carriers didn't want to see," he said. "I don't think you'll see another nationwide carrier develop out of thin air."

NO WHOLESALE ACCESS

The lack of a wholesale access provision drew criticism from the agency's two Democrats.

"Several sophisticated companies and financial institutions have concluded that wholesale is indeed a viable economic model," said Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps. "Smaller entrepreneurs deserve an alternate path to wireless access."

Commercial providers will be able to bid on the 22 MHz in large regional licenses, as well as additional airwaves broken into smaller individual market licenses.

A 10 MHz swath of spectrum will be sold to a nonprofit entity for public safety officials to use, but it could be shared with commercial operators.

Supporters of the open-access approach, including Google and some U.S. consumer groups, say it will spur new competition and innovation in the market for wireless services.

Google said it would have to review details of the order before deciding whether it would bid in the auction, but praised the decision. "The FCC took some concrete steps on the road to bringing greater choice and competition to all Americans."

No. 1 U.S. wireless provider, AT&T, supported Martin's proposal, which would allow consumers the ability to move their wireless handset from network to network.

A Verizon Wireless spokesman declined comment, but an AT&T executive said the decision was a reasonable compromise.

"If Google is serious about introducing a competing business model into the wireless industry, Chairman Martin's compromise plan allows them to bid in the auction, win the spectrum, and then implement every one of the conditions they seek," said Jim Cicconi, an AT&T senior executive vice president.

(Additional reporting by Peter Kaplan in Washington and Sinead Carew in New York)

Beware the Piranha

07.27.2007

July 27, 2007: Deep in the heart of the Milky Way galaxy lurks an extraordinary black hole. Astronomers call it "supermassive." It has been feeding on the core of our galaxy so long, the hole has accumulated more than a million Suns of mass inside its pinprick belly.

How do we know it's there? You can't see a black hole. It reveals itself whenever an errant star or cloud of gas meanders too close. Matter falling into the hole is ripped apart and superheated, emitting bursts of high-energy radiation just before it disappears over the event horizon. Occasionally a burp of X-rays emanates from the Milky Way's core, and astronomers check off another meal.

Above: Matter swirls into a growing supermassive black hole--an artist's concept.

Today these burps are seldom, but among astronomers it is widely thought that the Milky Way's "monster in the middle" used to be more active--frighteningly so. Paul Martini of Ohio State University (OSU) explains: "Billions of years ago, when our galaxy was young, there was more 'food' in the core lots more gas and stars for the black hole to consume." He believes there could have been "a real feeding frenzy" lighting up the center of the Milky Way like a beacon visible half-way across the Universe.

Could this be true?

Finding out requires traveling back in time--a trick, believe it or not, astronomers are able to perform. "By looking at galaxies billions of light years away, we can see them as they were billions of years ago," explains Martini. "This can give us a clue to the state of the Milky Way when it was young."

So, in an effort led by OSU astronomy graduate student Jason Eastman, Martini and colleagues used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to examine 12 clusters of galaxies ranging in distance from 2.4 to 5.7 billion light years away. Their purpose: to learn how galactic cores change over time.

What they saw reminded Eastman of "piranhas in a very well-fed aquarium." Younger galaxies tended to be very active; supermassive black holes at their cores were furiously consuming matter and producing copious X-rays in the process.

Older galaxies, on the other hand, were relatively calm; the frenzy was subsiding. "It's not that the black holes were no longer hungry," says Eastman, "they were just running out of things to eat." The ratio of active X-ray cores in the galaxies they analyzed, younger vs. older, was about 20 to 1.

"The food, or fuel for a central black hole, is primarily thought to be interstellar gas," adds Martini. "It is likely that an occasional star is also swallowed, but most researchers agree that clouds of gas are the main fuel source."

Hence the big picture: When galaxies are young, a black hole forms at the core. Why? "Because that is the bottom of the galaxy's gravitational potential well," answers Martini. "Gas, stars, even smaller black holes will settle to the center of the galaxy over time." At first, gas is abundant, and the black hole feeds greedily, announcing itself to the cosmos via high-energy X-rays. As time passes, the core is depleted of gas and feeding subsides. By the time a galaxy is as old as the Milky Way (10+ billion years), the central black hole has grown to millions of solar masses, but only takes an occasional meal. The fish is hungry, but the water is nearly empty.

-------------------------------------------------------

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.

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References